Luther hawsWater fountain maker

Made the world first water fountain.

World very first water fountain

Eye fountain

All about his company and family Luther Haws was a self-employed master plumber and sheet metal contractor, as well as a sanitation inspector, for the city of Berkeley, California. In 1906, while on his rounds at a public school, Luther noticed children drinking from a shared tin cup. This unsanitary though typical arrangement inspired the inventor in him. Using available parts, Luther Haws assembled the world's first drinking faucet.

The Berkeley School Department loved the idea and installed the first models. In 1909 Luther formed the Haws Sanitary Drinking Faucet Company, located in Berkeley, and obtained several patents. Thirsty Californians soon discovered Luther's label on his fountains: "Haws Sanitary Drinking Faucet Company, Berkeley, California, Patent 1911." Luther Haws' innovative style still drives this third and fourth-generation family-owned company.

Haws Today

In 1996, Haws Corporation completed construction and moved into a new 210,000 square foot facility in Sparks, Nevada. Haws products are manufactured at this technologically advanced facility. From there, and from our other manufacturing sites in Burgdorf, Switzerland, which serves the European market; Singapore, which serves the Asian market; and Sao Paulo, Brazil which serves the South American market, our products are shipped worldwide.

He was a very rich man

He was very successful

When Luther Haws, a sanitary inspector for the city of Berkeley, saw public schoolchildren drinking from a tin cup in 1905, it inspired him to invent a healthier alternative: a drinking faucet. Haws founded the Haws Sanitary Drinking Faucet Co. in 1909, and received a patent for his faucet in 1911. Haws Corp. now is headquartered in Sparks, Nev.